Australian universities urged to resist push for social justice activism

Heads of Australia’s universities have been urged to resist the lure of social justice activism or risk damage to their reputations.

Australian universities have been warned on free speech. Picture: Martin Berry

Heads of Australia’s leading universities have been urged to resist the lure of social justice activism, including pressure to “improve society” and “change the world”, or risk serious damage to their academic reputations.

Amid a rising wave of threats to free speech at tertiary campuses across the nation, a gathering of university chancellors — effectively those who chair the governing boards — has been told that they have a choice between either encouraging free inquiry or taking a social justice path, and that choosing the latter would “not only undermine academic scholarship and student learning, but could be seriously damaging to the reputation and viability of the institutions”.

Speaking at the University Chancellors Council’s Conference on University Governance in Adelaide this morning, Institute of Public Affairs research fellow Matthew Lesh said recent publicised threats to free speech — such as opposition to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, the sacking of geophysicist Peter Ridd by James Cook University and the protest over psychologist Bettina Arndt’s appearance at the University of Sydney — were just “the tip of the iceberg”.

“Australia’s universities are increasingly becoming closed intellectual shops,” said Mr Lesh.

“I speak to academics and students at your institutions almost every day … that tell me about a worrying culture of censorship.

“Australia’s universities are lacking in viewpoint diversity — a range of perspectives challenging each other in the pursuit of reason, truth and progress. This leads to groupthink, self-censorship, and sometimes active shouting down.”

Mr Lesh singled out Australian National University’s withdrawal in May from negotiations with the Ramsay Centre to develop a western civilisation course and scholarship program as a prime example. The Ramsay Centre, which was established with a bequest from the late healthcare billionaire Paul Ramsay, had attracted staunch opposition from academics, unions and student groups, who accused the philanthropic group behind it of pushing a “racist” and “radically conservative agenda”. Critics also took issue with the centre’s Liberal party links. It is chaired by former Prime Minister John Howard and Tony Abbott is on the board.

A subsequent move by the Ramsay Centre to establish the course at the University of Sydney has been met with similar animus, with an open letter signed by more than 100 academics describing a future collaboration as a “violation of our crucial role in promoting a society of diversity, inclusiveness and mutual respect”.

Mr Lesh said Australia’s universities were restrained by an array of social justice policies around cultural inclusion, global citizenship and sustainability that threatened free expression.

He said a free inquiry university allowed students and academics decide for themselves “what is a good and bad idea, not seek to prevent some speakers”.

“A free inquiry university does not state the purpose of the university is to achieve a specific social outcome,” he said.

“A free inquiry university encourages academics from a wide variety of perspectives to challenge each other’s research, to find flaws, and improve quality in the academy.

“A free inquiry university exposes students to variety of perspectives, including those they find uncomfortable, distressing or downright offensive, so that students understand all sides of an argument and can grow intellectually.”

The was a danger when a university’s purpose becomes attached to one ideological endpoint, Mr Lesh said.

“Simply, it’s no longer really a university,” he said, “it’s an activist organisation”.

ANU Chancellor Gareth Evans has also spoken at the same conference, restating the university’s reasons for pulling away from the multimillion-dollar deal, accusing at the Ramsay Centre of an “unwillingness” to commit to “the principle of academic freedom” — a charge the centre has previously denied.